The Spins

He wants to eliminate the IRS and the income tax. How will the government run our country?

This is a common one. Fact: only 1/3 of the government's revenue comes from income tax.

The US' budget for 2006 was $2.6 trillion dollars, far more than the budget of the US back in 2000 ($1.8 trillion).

If we eliminate the illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq, reduce spending, eliminate the almost $1 trillion we are spending over seas (including the war),
we can reduce the budget by almost a trillion dollars, which would effectively eliminate the need for the income tax. Eliminating the income tax
would create an incredible economic boom for all citizens of the United States.

The rest of the United States' revenue comes from other sources, such as import tariffs, taxes on oil, corporate taxes, etc.

If he gets rid of all the agencies he wants to eliminate (like the IRS), a lot of people would lose their jobs!

This is incorrect. Money saved by the government flows back to the population. Money spent by the government is taken away from the population.

By eliminating, for example, the IRS and income tax, the population of the United States will have more money to spend, save and invest.

This would create more job opportunities in the private sector as businesses and banking institutions will need more employees to handle the additional
demand.

Plus, government employees are not just fired like in the private sector. They are forced to "retire" which ensures that they will continue receiving
an income.

He is anti-war; Iran will kill us all and wipe Israel off the face of the Earth!!!

Oh the fear the media and the neo-cons have created. Here's the facts:

According to the CIA, Iran may build one nuclear weapon within 10 years

Ahmadinejad may be evil, but he's not stupid. It is estimated that Israel has about 300 nuclear weapons and has ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile) capabilities. If Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear weapon, Israel will WIPE IRAN off the face of the Earth, within an hour.

The Soviet Union had over 40,000 nuclear weapons, and we are worrying about a third world country that has no nuclear weapons, no army, air force or navy???

Iran does not posses ICBM capabilities able to reach the United States

Ahmadinejad is enjoying his empire over there. He's happy with the power he has and he doesn't want to lose it.

And last, we can wipe Iran off the face of the Earth within just 10 minutes. Ron Paul may be anti war, but he has said before that in the case
of imminent attack, he will defend the United States with its full military power.

The fear for Iran is being created to prepare this country to go to another war and benefit a few corporations (*cough* Halliburton, war equipment manufacturers and oil interests *cough*).
Just like the war in Iraq is about oil. Plain and simple. There are far worse things happening around the world, such as genocide in Africa and Burma, and yet, we
don't go "help them" get liberated from such tyrants.

Note: the comment that "Iran wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth" was actually a translation error. Look it up. I bet you don't hear the
media correcting that "error"...

Ron Paul is an isolationist!

Oh we hear this one a lot. Ron Paul is a non-interventionist, which means that the US government should not
interfere with the affairs of other countries. He is pro-commerce, pro-investment, pro-peace and pro-trade
with all countries of the world. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "Commerce with all. Alliance with none".

He's getting rid of Social Security. What will the elderly do??

Did you know that the money you put into Social Security out of your salary is not actually saved? It is used to give it to others.
It is a pyramid scheme that will fail once there are more elderly than younger people paying Social Security.

It is well known that Social Security will collapse within a few decades and/or will bankrupt our government.

Ron Paul's plan is this: of all the money that we will be saving with a smaller government, part of those savings will continue to help
Social Security. However, individuals will now be given the option to gradually opt out of Social Security and start putting their money
into retirement plans, such as 401Ks.

He wants to take away the right for a woman to choose what to do with her body

Ron Paul, as a OB/GYN that has delivered over 4,000 babies, is pro-life. However, his stand on this is that abortion is
none of the federal government's business and that it should be decided at the state level.

In response to that, the other spin is "what happens when a woman is raped, or has to terminate a pregnancy due to medical
reasons. The state will make the decision??". As in any country that has abolished abortion (except Nicaragua, which made the
terrible mistake of not establishing exceptions and is about to change that law), there are always "self defense" clauses for these types of cases.
No state would abolish abortion without taking such considerations into account.

He wants to eliminate public schools!

Incorrect. He's against the federal Department of Education, a $56 billion a year bureaucracy. Public schools are funded
by the state, not the federal government. The local districts, communities, teachers and principals know better about how to manage their
schools. They would do better if such bureaucracy wasn't around taking years to make decisions from thousands of miles away.

Note: the Department of Education did not exist until 1980. This country's education has been in a steep decline ever since.

Ron Paul opposes universal healthcare

It doesn't work. Here's why. When President Nixon mandated that companies give insurance to their employees,
drug companies, hospitals and doctors took advantage and started raising their prices. That trend
has continued ever since. The "system" is being taken advantage of. If less people had health insurance,
drug companies and hospitals would actually be forced to compete, the way it was before heavily regulated
employer mandated insurance.

Ron Paul was a physician, back when hospitals provided free health care and were run by charities and the church, not
corporations.

We all know that major corporations take advantage of government contracts. Just look at how military
contracts are taken advantage of. Providing more health insurance will just cause more abuse.

We are in a system where hospitals and doctos always charge the maximum. Stay in a hospital for a few
days and your bill will easily be over $15,000. They'll push on you every single test possible,
even though the hospital and doctors themselves know you don't need them.

We need to return to a system of a free market with no regulations giving advantages to healthcare
providers (established during the Nixon era). In a free market, healthcare companies would actually
need to compete. Right now, they don't,
because they know most of the patients walking in through the door have insurance (and those that don't
have insurance get turned away; easy profit!!!).

In conclusion, government sponsored universal healthcare will just cause the cost of healthcare to rise even more.
Supporters of universal healthcare then say "oh but we will all have health insurance, so it doesn't matter if the cost goes up".
Now my question to them is: who pays for that insurance? You do on your taxes! It's not FREE! Your taxes will ultimately go
up to pay for the abuse on whatever universal healthcare system is put in place.

He's a radical liberalist!

Ron Paul believes in the constitution, which gives its citizens complete freedom, not a government that spies on its
own citizens. His ideals aren't radical, they are just the same ideals our country had since it was founded, but lost
in the last few decades.

The government should be small and should not interfere or dictate people's lives, the way it used to be before
wars, oil, lobbyists and corporate donations to politicians.

He opposes the war on drugs

The "war on drugs" costs the United States tens of billions of dollars per year, for the last 30 years, and the results
aren't very positive. It targets individuals unfairly while the big drug dealers, with plenty of cash in their hands, slip through the legal cracks
and have fueled corruption within police and drug enforcement agencies.

One thing you may not know is that we also have a war going on in Colombia, supposedly to stop drug trafficking. The truth
is politicians spend more time deciding which company will build helicopters for such a war than concentrating on the war's
purpose.

Eradication and poisonous spraying of lands has built up resentment in many countries, including Colombia. It's only a matter
of time before these other countries also perform acts of terrorism in our land.

A new way is needed.

He's behind on the polls! Why vote for him then?

What's the problem with "scientific" polls? Here are a few problems:

Polls, such as Gallup's, dial landlines only. Most of Ron Paul supporters are the younger/Internet generation, who mostly have cell phones, use the Internet, VoIP (Vonage, Skype...),
etc.

Let's admit it. We don't answer telemarketing/political calls anyway. Those that do answer them are those
that have too much time in their hands and are not well-versed in politics.

The polls call registered voters. Most of Ron Paul's followers, in the millions, have never voted before and will do so for the firt time in 2008.
Thus, they aren't on those lists.

In the 2004 Bush election, the Republican turnout was only about 6.6%. The polls are calling those people, which are mostly those that blindly
follow George Bush.

Never in history has there been such a grass roots movement. While the Giulianis and Clintons have to spend millions of dollars to campaign, there
are tens of thousands of Ron Paul volunteers spreading the word. They make banners, meetings, rallys, etc. We are passionate about Ron Paul. Have
you seen anyone as passionate about Obama, Clinton, Giuliani, McCain, etc, as we are for Ron Paul? Precisely.

Pollsters ask questions such as: "There will be a number of people running for President in 2008 as Republicans. Some of the most talked about are Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. If the Republican primary were today which of these men would you vote for, or would you vote for somebody else?".
It's funny how "somebody else" and "undecided" amount to 40% of the responses. That's where Ron Paul is. This question came
from an actual polling company.

You should vote for who you believe in, not who the media tells you will win.

I've heard he's being supported by white supremacists!

This is the latest spin and it's one of the biggest spins put on something that is not really there.

By law, campaign donations are public information. When the Ron Paul campaign released their list of donors,
people started searching through the list to see who had donated to Ron Paul. One of the names on the list, a rather
common name by the way, is the same as that of a known white supremacist leader. It in no way proves
that the donation was actually made by that specific man. And it wasn't even a high amount but only a few hundred
dollars.

Within hours, articles started popping up around the net saying that white supremacists love Ron Paul. Some actually
started saying that Ron Paul himself is a white supremacist. Based on that we can also conclude that if a Girl Scout donates to
Ron Paul, he must be a Girl Scout himself. :)